


(the one thing I really wanna be) is happy

by maurascalla



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Professors, Artist Steve Rogers, Canon Disabled Character, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Handyman Sam Wilson, Lighthouses, M/M, Maine Gothic, New England, New Year's Eve, Nonbinary Bucky Barnes, Nonbinary Character, POV Steve Rogers, Photography, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Russian Natasha Romanov, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, War Veteran Sam Wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 05:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11396472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maurascalla/pseuds/maurascalla
Summary: Sam and Steve are from away, but they do alright.





	(the one thing I really wanna be) is happy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [(the one thing I really want to be) is happy ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403897) by [maurascalla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maurascalla/pseuds/maurascalla), [OriginalCeenote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote). 



> this is part of the Captain America Reverse Big Bang Challenge ([ART HERE](http://downwarddnaspiral.tumblr.com/post/162608546981/this-is-my-art-entry-for-the-captain-america)) and it's an open love letter to my dumb state and these dumb boys 
> 
> title from feel alright by spose  
> beta by charlie (tumblr @deadestboy)

One.

The sky meets the sea in a startlingly blue clash of titans. Steve can't tell which blue is bluer, just that they both make his eyes hurt in their overwhelming depth and vivacity. It's sunny, bright and cloudless, in a way he'd seen in pictures and depicted in Wyeth paintings he'd studied in school, but never actually witnessed in person. He keeps blinking his eyes behind his glasses but he never quite gets used to the way it makes his retinas burn.

Steve chews on the end of his pencil, looking out into the bay, squinting against the sun. When he looks down at his sketchbook, he blinks back the reflection of the ocean in his eyes. He draws a hesitant line across the page, light as a feather, the horizon mirrored on the page in his lap. He runs the lead over it again in spots, marking the land across the water.

The dock under his thighs is warm and there's a breeze coming in with the tide. Steve's sneakers hang perilously close to the water sloshing around under him. When he wriggles, splinters threaten to embed themselves in his skinny legs, but so far the bark has been worse than the bite. He sketches the outline of a boat with its sails up in the mouth of the harbor, far away.

Somewhere behind him, a little way up a hill and down a trodden dirt walkway, there's a festival going on. He isn't sure what for, exactly, since he gave up trying to keep track after the first month in this nowhere coastal town. Seems like there's a new one every couple of weeks, and with the festivities comes tourists and food trucks and people selling all manner of homemade goods. Last week, Steve bought a necklace made with sea glass and twine and sent it home to his mom. The glass was matte and a deep bottle green, and Steve thought she might like it.

When Steve agreed to take this adjunct professorship, he hadn't really expected this sleepy fishing town. He expected something like his NYU experience, only on the other side of the slide projector. Instead of big classes and tired undergrads looking for an art credit, he has a whole slew of nontraditional students picking up art as a passion project, and class sizes small enough Steve had to double check his own syllabus to make sure he was in the right place.

Frowning down at his sketchbook, Steve decides that enough is enough for one day and flips the cover, closing the book. He slides his pencil into the space between his ear and his baseball cap, and stands awkwardly. Behind him, music is playing and someone is laughing. From the corner of his eye he sees the man who maintains the lighthouse look up from where he's talking to the woman who runs the general store by the docks. Steve watches him track Steve's movement from one end of the dock to the other, watches him smirk when Steve's shaky legs meet solid ground. For a moment, the wind settles and the music fades into that place between two songs.

 

 

Two.

Steve's medium is paint, usually oils, but his professorship is in photography. There's a DSLR hanging around his neck, bumping bruises into his sternum, as he leads a group of students down Main Street.

"It doesn't matter what you photograph," he says, loud for the stragglers. "Anything you want, any subject, just make sure you have ten cohesive pieces."

The youngest and by far most precocious of Steve's students, Kitty, raises her hand, politely waiting to be called on before asking, "Ten of the same thing-- same subject, I mean?"

"If it makes sense to you, and you can explain it to us, it can be ten pictures of anything that forms an idea or a story. Ten pieces that make a whole," Steve replies. Some of the students frown deeply, while others smile and excitedly clutch their cameras. This is really the only project they have all semester. Steve was asked to design a course for novices, and he doesn't want to bombard them with too much, too soon. All but one of his students is studying part-time with a full-time job, so he figures they'll start with digital cameras and work their way up to film with one large project that uses both mediums at the student's digression.

Together, en masse, the class follows Steve from Main Street to Cedar, then down around the corner to one of the town’s graveyards. It's centrally located, next to the elementary school and a store that exclusively sells woolen yarn. There are three more cemeteries in town, two on the outskirts, and one split in half by the highway connecting the town to the world at large. Steve leads his class to the graveyard with the oldest tombstones and several grand looking mausoleums. He sets them free to take morbid pictures to their hearts’ content and settles himself on a rock next to a decorative lilac tree several months out of bloom.

Steve sits back and brings his right knee close to his chest. He rests his camera against it and uses it for balance, steadying it while he looks through the eyepiece, and snaps pictures of his students roaming around the cemetery. He wonders if he should remind them about the rule of thirds during this adventure, or if he should use this as a teachable moment during their next class period. Before he has a chance to decide anything either way, he spies, through his lens, the lighthouse keeper cutting though the markers at a brisk pace, his long dark legs in salmon shorts that are both garish and flattering.

He stops to talk to one of Steve's students, an elderly man using his twilight years to find himself in art, and before he consciously makes the decision to do it, Steve finds himself taking picture after picture of the other man.

Someone told Steve his name once, when he first got into town and spent the evening with the sculpture professor and his friends, but he doesn't remember it. He remembers that he's a recent transplant, like Steve himself, that he's been working for the town, maintaining the lighthouse, for about five years. He was in the air force, or maybe the marines, and he moved to Maine after he was honorably discharged.

It must be the military training that alerts the lighthouse keeper to Steve's attention, because one second, he's smiling and laughing with his companion, and the next he's walking over to Steve's rock, hands too casual in the front pockets of his shorts.

Steve lowers his leg and slides his camera down so it's once again hanging from his neck. He considers standing, but ultimately decides that would just make him look nervous and more guilty of this invasion of privacy.

"Hey," says the lighthouse keeper. "My name is Sam. I don't think we've met before."

"Steve," Steve says. He holds out his hand for the other man, Sam, to shake. His hand is large and warm and Steve can feel rough callouses on his palms. "Nice to meet you."

They make eye contact and Sam's eyes are so deep, so dark, and Steve is so lost in them that he forgets to let go of his hand. They look like freshly tilled earth, like a tree's damp bark after a long, hard rain. Steve falls into them and finds it impossible to claw his way out.

Finally, after far too long gripping Sam's dry hand, he clears his throat and lets go. Or he tries to, anyway. Sam holds on a second longer, like he's trying to keep Steve's small hand in his. Steve is startled, can't seem to hide it, and when he blinks in surprise it breaks whatever spell was hanging over them. Steve finds himself flushing red and hot.

Sam shoves his hand back into his pocket and looks at Steve in a way that isn't sheepish, but isn't bold either. Like he's assessing him and mostly likes what he's seeing. Steve is sheepish though, so he just blushes deeper and rubs the back of his neck.

"Erik tells me you're the new professor up at the college?" Sam asks.

"Uh, yeah," Steve replies, and he still feels sort of weird about how everyone seems to know everything in this town.

"You're from New York?"

"Brooklyn," Steve clarifies, because it's important. Sam smiles, and while Steve had seen it from a distance, it's like staring into the sun this close up. He averts his eyes.

"I'm from Harlem," Sam tells him, and Steve finds himself smiling back. "It's really weird at first, right? The way things are here."

Steve nods, because they are.

"Listen, man, I gotta go," Sam says, and maybe Steve's imagining things, but he looks like he regrets it. "But you should come by the lighthouse sometime... for pictures. It’s really cool."

Steve laughs. "Sure, I will," he says and makes the mistake of looking at Sam directly, because he can feel the background slipping away again, like all he can see is Sam's eyes and Sam's radiant smile.

"Okay, bye," Sam says, but he hasn't stopped looking at Steve, even as he's backing away. He gives him a cute little wave, and Steve feels his heart skip a beat.

Sam nearly trips on a root from the lilac tree, and after that he turns away and walks normally to the simply gated entry into the cemetery. Steve tries to look away, not to watch him go, but he finds himself glancing back at Sam. When Sam passes through the fence, he glances back, and Steve swears he sees him blush.

 

 

Three.

There is a warm breeze blowing in from the south. Steve uses this unexpectedly nice day to take a walk around downtown with his camera. It’s just a couple of streets, surrounded by homes and trees, full of little specialty shops, art galleries, and a Dunkin Donuts. Steve wouldn’t have even known that it was downtown if there weren’t a convenient sign telling him so as he strolled down Main Street.

The further down the hill he walks, the closer to the bay he gets. It smells like fish and drying seaweed. From where he's standing (in front of an art gallery selling paintings of lobster boats and their grizzled sea captains), he can just see where the docks he’d sat on barely a week ago have been hauled up and left to sit until next summer.

Steve gives the boat paintings one last look before he goes over to inspect the docks. He learns quickly to breathe through his mouth, the fishy smell overwhelming him the closer he gets. The wood on top is warmed by the sun, and on the underside, it’s chilly and damp. He sees squishy polyps and crusting salt. He tries to avoid the dangling creatures as he reaches in to touch one of the starfish stuck along the bottom. It’s rough under his fingers, like sandpaper or a cat’s tongue. He’s felt dry ones, of course, but none that were still moving. It’s a wonder, the way its tiny arm curls away from him. He can’t help the smile that spreads over his face.

With deft fingers, Steve brings his camera up to his eye and he snaps a picture of the starfish and the polyps and the salt. He manages to catch his little starfish raising its arm, so it looks like it’s waving to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Sam’s lighthouse jutting out into the bay. He looks down at the camera in his hands, up at the clear blue sky, then back at his camera. He thinks about Sam, thinks about his offer and about the way his eyes look like the fine oak of his grandmother’s vanity. Steve takes a deep breath, drops his camera to his chest, and starts walking back up the hill. He pauses halfway up to puff on his inhaler.

*

The hike to the lighthouse is longer than Steve expects, and he stops a few times to rest his lungs and his back. When he gets there, he sees a dark Jeep in the parking lot next to a sensible tan Subaru. Parking is adjacent to a little brown house that sits close to the water’s edge. The white lighthouse stands proudly beside it, but it’s smaller than Steve expected. Cleaner and newer looking than he thought it would be. He snaps a picture of a man walking along the water’s edge with a small child. There’s no one else around, and Steve takes pictures of the lighthouse and the bay, blues clashing on blues, before walking up to the front door.

There’s a sign on the door listing business hours and prices for children and adults. It’s Sunday, and Steve scans the list and notices that Sunday is marked with a curt and conclusive “CLOSED”. He raises his fist and knocks on the door anyway.

Steve hears a scuffle, a muffled voice, and then the door is opening, revealing Sam in worn jeans and a purple t-shirt. His brow is furrowed and his mouth is hard set, but his face softens when he looks down and sees Steve.

“Hi,” Steve says, smiling nervously. He rubs at the back of his neck, anxious and red at the tips of his ears. When Sam doesn’t say anything he hurriedly continues, dropping his arms awkwardly by his sides. “You said I could-”

Sam blinks and grins widely, handsome. He opens the door and invites Steve in with a wave of his hand. “Hey, man! I wasn’t sure you were ever going to take me up on the offer, to be honest. It’s been a couple weeks.”

Steve shrugs. “Those papers don’t grade themselves,” he jokes, but it falls flat. He looks over Sam’s shoulder and checks out the anchor taking up most of the back wall, laying on its rusted side.

The whole ground floor of the building is full of glass cases and artifacts on stands surrounded by red ropes. There are maps hanging on the wall closest to them with bright yellow arrows pointing to important spots along the Maine coast, and an artist’s rendition of what looks like a sea monster on the opposite wall. It resembles the Loch Ness Monster, only stubby. Like the Loch Ness Monster’s cousin. Steve glances up and sees an elegant dark blue sign with golden curved engravings declaring this space a _Maritime Museum_. He points to it, raising an eyebrow, and says, “How many of those does this town have? I’ve seen two already.”

Sam laughs. He moves further into the museum, and Steve follows. “There are three.”

“No, there aren’t!” Steve exclaims. “Why are there so many?”

“I have no idea,” Sam says, leaning in conspiratorially. His eyes are shiny with mirth. “I’ve never gotten a straight answer about it from anyone.”

“Weird,” Steve decides, and Sam nods in agreement. They grin at each other, and Steve can’t stand how cute Sam’s dimples are. He looks away, ducking his head, his cheeks burning fire engine red.

“Would you-” Sam clears his throat and starts again, “Would you like a tour?”

Steve nods, then points to his camera, still hanging heavy around his neck. “Can I take pictures?” he asks.

“Sure,” Sam replies. He leads Steve around the small museum, explaining the different exhibits and about the history of the region. His tone is mostly official and professional, but occasionally it slips into something keen and sly when he goes off script. He pauses every time Steve raises his camera to snap a picture. Sometimes, when Steve is quick and careful, he can get one of Sam, mid-explanation, where he looks serious and beautiful.

*

The sun has set over the horizon by the time Sam is done with their tour, with only a faint outline of lighter blue sky by the trees that pepper the other side of the bay. Together, they step outside and onto the porch, the only light coming from the single overhead florescent inside, next to the museum sign. It casts a glow over the wooden steps and out across the muddied lawn, almost reaching to the drop-off, where the water meets the land. The lighthouse itself is off, but as Steve learned only minutes ago, it’s more for show these days.

The Subaru, the man, and the child are all gone, leaving Sam and Steve completely alone. Steve leans against the railing, looking up at Sam hovering in the doorway. There’s a halo of light around his body, and Steve’s breath catches.

“Did you walk here?” Sam asks, noticing the empty lot. Steve nods, and Sam closes the door. “I’ll drive you back.” His tone brokers no argument, even if Steve had wanted to make one.

The ride back is mostly quiet, peaceful. Something smooth is playing on the radio, the display panel telling Steve that it’s a CD, which makes sense. The only radio he has picked up in his car are country stations, a sports talk show running out of New Hampshire, and the college radio station that plays mostly weird techno.

Steve listens to the music and tries not to think about how close Sam is, how even after a whole day, he still smells like he just got out of a clean shower. He keeps his hands in his lap, and when he glances over, Sam has both of his on the wheel.

“I live just down this road here,” Steve says, when he can see the sign for the college. He points down a side street and Sam turns accordingly. “The one after the blue house here, the yellow one.”

Sam pulls into Steve’s driveway. The outside light comes to life with a blinding flash. He turns the key in the ignition and turns off the car. The silence around them is deafening. All at once Steve feels too big and too small. He fiddles with the strap on his camera. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says.

“Thanks for coming,” Sam replies. Steve looks over, and the other man is grinning. His teeth flash in the light coming from Steve’s porch. He’s leaning into Steve’s space, just a little, and he says, “We should do that again some time. Hang out.”

“Yeah,” Steve smiles, leaning in to mirror Sam. “Definitely.”

 

 

Four.

It’s October, and the leaves are changing, and it’s nothing like Steve has ever seen before. He and Logan, the sculpture professor, take a trip up the tallest hill outside of town and when Steve looks out at all the trees and the bay, it’s glorious. A veritable sea of reds and yellows and oranges against an actual sea of blue and crashing whitecaps. He takes a thousand pictures with his phone and sends them all to his mother, and a few to Natasha and Bucky too. He Snapchats himself using the dog filter with the view behind him and sends it to Sam with the caption “holy shit!!”

Steve and Logan are back in the car, winding down the bumpy dirt road back into town, when Steve gets a response from Sam. He taps on the little red square and is treated to a picture of Sam with white paint on his face, using the flower crown filter. He’s giving the camera a thumbs up.

Steve hurriedly screencaps it and sets it as Sam’s contact picture, replacing the picture of him Steve had stolen from Facebook.

A minute later, he receives another Snap from Sam. Steve pressed on the blue arrow and a screencap of Snapchat notifying Sam of Steve’s screencap appears with the caption, “I see you.”

Steve bites his lips to keep from laughing.

 

 

Five.

Bucky is visiting for Halloween. They’ve got bat stickers stuck to their prosthetic arm and vampire fangs hanging on a chain around their neck. Steve picked them up from the airport in Portland two days ago. He was so excited to see them that he ran and jumped on their back. They fell in a ridiculous pile of limbs on the dirty floor, alarming everyone in the vicinity.

“What the fuck is up with this place?” Bucky asks, slamming into Steve’s classroom. Thankfully, the Photography 101 class has already left for the day.

“What do you mean, Buck?” Steve says, looking up at them from his desk. He has a pile of quizzes on film development in front of him that need to be graded before they can go out tonight. Halloween is Bucky’s favorite holiday, and they’ve spent it together every year since they were 10.

Bucky falls into a chair they pull out from a neighboring table and twist to sit in front of Steve’s desk. They rest their forearms along the back of the chair and prop their chin in their fleshy elbow. “Someone said ‘hello’ to me on my way here. They asked me how my day was going. It was awful.”

“Yeah, they just do that here.” Steve flicks through the tests and separates the ones with answers that are definitely too short from the ones that aren’t. “It’s called being friendly.”

“Well, I hate it,” Bucky declares.

“You get used to it,” Steve says absently, using a red pen to circle someone’s answer. Next to his elbow, his phone vibrates. It’s a text from Natasha asking him to make Bucky check their phone. He shows it to his friend, arching his eyebrow.

Bucky rolls their eyes, but digs their phone out of their pocket. They make a show of checking their messages. While they’re typing out a response, they say, “When am I going to meet Lighthouse Guy?”

“His name is Sam,” Steve says automatically.

“When am I going to meet Sam, then?”

Steve marks another test, switching to black ink because the student used red. “Tonight, I told you,” he replies. “He’s coming out with us.”

“Are you guys dating yet?” Bucky still hasn’t looked up from their phone. Their tongue is sticking out of their mouth, deep in concentration.

“No,” Steve blushes. Bucky looks up then and shakes their head, mocking.

“Say ‘hey’ to Nat,” they order, holding their phone up. Dutifully Steve waves for the camera, still bright red. Bucky fiddles around with the phone some more, and Steve uses the moment to escape into his pile of quizzes again. A few minutes pass and Steve grades to the sound of Bucky fighting with their phone, which is about three years out of date and behaves as such.

“Steve,” Bucky says and Steve looks up. They’ve got their phone tucked under their chin, held in place between it and their chest, while they reach up with their arms to tie their hair back with a fluffy hair tie decorated with glittering purple spiders. “Let me see the pictures again.”

Steve sighs, but he’s smiling. He unlocks his phone and opens his photo gallery. He slides through until he gets to the ones he had taken of he and Sam just a few days before, while they were washing the lighthouse windows, wrapped in fluffy sweaters and carrying industrial strength Windex in special belts around their waists. It was weird, as far as dates go, but Steve had loved it.

“God, he looks like such a dork,” Bucky laughs.

*

Sam and Bucky have been dragging each other all night, sitting at one of the three absolutely jam-packed bars in town, and Steve keeps sending Natasha video clips of her partner getting their proverbial ass handed to them. She is going to have so much material to work with when Bucky goes back to the city. Steve is smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.

“Listen, Edgelord,” Sam yells over the sound of Bucky crowing, and Steve laughs so hard at the nickname that he almost falls out of his chair. The only thing that keeps him from toppling over is Sam’s steady arm around his shoulders. “Air Force beats out Army any day, okay! Any day!”

“Nooooooooo,” Bucky groans, throwing up their hands. They shake their head and stomp their feet. Steve watches as they knock back the rest of their drink before looking Sam dead in the eye. “March along, sing our song, with the Army of the free!” they chant, unblinking, unwavering.

Sam rolls his eyes and, over the sound of Bucky singing, starts a song of his own, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder! Climbing high into the sun!”

Bucky tries to sing louder than Sam, but Sam’s voice climbs over Bucky’s and the general din of the bar. He doesn’t sing well, or maybe it’s the liquor, but his voice carries, and between the two of them, they have drawn in quite a crowd.

Someone behind them starts up a rendition of the National Anthem, and that seems to settle them down a little, and Steve records the two of them singing along with the entire bar. He sends it to his email, so he can watch it again in the morning.

The National Anthem sing-a-long turns into an all-bar karaoke. They cover the Monster Mash and the Addams Family theme. Then one of the English professors, a woman with a reputation for her kind disposition called Jean, drunkenly recites the opening scene from Macbeth, which seems to be everyone’s cue to exit stage left, because there’s hardly anyone left in the bar after that. Steve checks his watch, and it tells him that it’s quarter to one in the morning. Officially November.

“That was beautiful,” Bucky tells Jean, their eyes bleary and earnest. They give the startled woman a hug. “You were such a good witch!”

“Actually,” Steve hears her muffled reply from where she’s buried in Bucky’s chest. “I was three witches.” They pat her shoulder.

“Such great witches!” they shout, and Steve stops paying attention because Sam is tugging on the longer blond hairs that fall into his eyes.

Steve catches Sam’s fingers in his own and moves them into his lap. He rubs his thumb over the bones of Sam’s hand, along the joints, and down the folds of his palm. He leans in and puts his other hand on Sam’s shoulder, spreading his fingers over the base of his neck, between his sweater and his t-shirt. “Hey,” Steve says, low and intimate.

Sam smiles slow and thick and looks at Steve through his lashes, his pupils eating up most of the rich brown of his irises. “Hey, yourself,” he says and Steve feels it in his chest.

“Last call!” the bartender shouts, and it breaks the tension building in the space between them. Sam pulls away, squeezing Steve’s fingers. He finishes off his drink and stands to put on his coat. Steve copies him, and they move to the counter to settle their tabs.

“What does he mean, last call?” Bucky asks, yelling in Steve’s ear. “It’s like, barely past midnight!”

“Blue book laws, pal,” the bartender explains with a shrug. He hands Sam, and then Steve, pens to sign their receipts.

They file out into the crisp autumn night, breath curling out around them, illuminated by the streetlight above. Steve takes Sam’s hand in his, and they, along with Bucky and Jean, make their way back to the side streets around campus. Bucky sings loud, bawdy songs they learned from their mom that make Sam laugh. Steve likes the way it sounds.

 

 

Six.

Fleece blankets slide against his skin as Steve burrows into Sam’s bed, cocooning himself in their fluffy warmth. The second floor of the building attached to the lighthouse gets so drafty. It’s a couple hundred years old, the lighthouse itself even older, and the historical society hasn’t let anyone make any non-restorative updates since some time in the ‘50s. Steve tucks his head into his blanket nest and rubs at his cold nose with one of his much warmer hands.

“Move over,” Sam says from somewhere outside of Steve’s blanket fortress.

With great reluctance, Steve lifts the covers and a blast of cold air hits him like a brick. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” he says, throwing the blankets over Sam’s body as soon as he flops down beside him. Together they work to make their fabric barrier air tight.

Light seeps its way through the knit, but not enough that Steve can see Sam properly. The space between them is humid, damp with the way they’re breathing each other’s air. Sam, careful not to disturb the blankets, coils his arm around Steve’s middle and pulls them closer together. They kiss and it’s messy and almost too hot, a little suffocating, and perfect.

Steve runs his hands up Sam’s smooth back, feels the muscles under his skin and how they ripple under his hands. He feels safe and like he could fall into his arms and stay there forever, pleased as punch. Steve doesn’t usually go in for New Year’s resolutions, but this year his was to spend as much time wrapped up in Sam as human possible. He started that night, arms folded up around Sam’s neck, legs around his waist, making out up against that giant rusting anchor in the museum downstairs, drunk, the sound of noise-makers and cheers from the bar they left behind ringing in his ears.

Sam rolls on top of Steve and takes the blankets with him, which distracts Steve from the hand down his pants. He squawks, inelegant, and flails to protect his bare chest from the cold. Sam laughs, falling bodily on top of Steve, crushing him.

“You-” Steve says firmly, punctuating with a kiss, “-are getting-” _kiss_ “-a fucking space heater-” _kiss_.

“I-” Sam mocks, pecking Steve on the mouth, “-already-” _kiss_ "-have-” _kiss_ “-one-" _kiss_.

Steve kneels up on the bed and drags the blankets towards himself. He folds them all around his small frame and demands, blankets hanging from his shoulders like a series of thick capes, to know where it is. Sam laughs and points to the closet across the room, between the kitchen and the living room/bedroom.

When the heater is plugged in, as close to the bed as they dare, Steve finds an old ball point pen on Sam’s bedside table and draws on a scrap of paper he’d picked up on the closet floor. Quickly, he sketches himself and the space heater with a sparkling heart between them. In the distance is a caricature of Sam, bawling his eyes out.

“Here,” Steve says, handing Sam the picture. “The heater is my boyfriend now.”

“What if I promised to keep you warm?” Sam asks, setting the drawing on the side table. He takes the pen from Steve and tosses it on top of the picture.

“In that case,” Steve slides his arm around Sam’s shoulders, “I could be convinced that you deserve a second chance.”

Outside, snow piles up around them. At some point, they’ll have to get up and shovel it away from the porch steps and from the cars. Steve will puff on his inhaler and Sam will smack his ass with a snow shovel. For right now though, they huddle together, cozy and sleepy in the weird half-light coming through the heavy, snow laden windows.

 

 

Seven.

A new year brings in a new semester, and Steve finds himself standing in front a new batch of students. He already knows most of them, in passing, having seen them around town -- four of the older women work at the public library, a few he’s met at the farmer’s market back at the tail end of summer. There are a couple of people from other departments looking to expand their knowledge, including Jean, the English professor, and Raven, one of the women who teaches textiles. He nods at them in recognition when he hands out their syllabuses.

At the front of the room, Steve stands and gives a refined variation of the First Day of Class speech he had given a few months earlier to a different set of faces. He’s learning too. When he agreed to cover his thesis advisor, Professor Carter’s, adjunct professorship for the year, he never believed he was the kind of person who could teach -- and teach well -- but last semester’s students nailed their final projects, and Steve feels good about what he’s doing. He feels right in his skin. Quiet.

As the hour winds down, and the students inevitably start to fidget in their seats, Steve looks up at the clock. He makes a note of the time and glances at the door. Sam is leaning against the jamb, arms crossed over his chest, looking at Steve with an open and honest affection that leaves Steve feeling loose and warm. He calls an end to class and dismisses the students. Raven gives him a sly look as she walks by, but he chooses to ignore it in favor of Sam standing in front of him.

Sam tugs at Steve’s tie, the one covered in little stars that Sam had helped him put on that morning, and says, “We’re going out for lunch.”

Steve is surprised. Sam never wants to go out for food. He tells Steve all the time that the people up here have no taste buds. He special orders dry ingredients off Amazon that he literally can’t buy here because the general store is mostly Moxie, fish, and canned vegetables.

“Okay,” he says, cautious. Sam just smiles and slides their hands together, leading the way.

Sam takes them across Main Street, down Cedar, past the cemetery, the yarn shop, three art galleries, and to a hole-in-the-wall soup place Steve hasn’t tried yet because there’s a Subway in the gas station three streets closer to where he lives.

The door chimes as they enter, and Steve is immediately blasted with hot air. He takes off his jacket and folds it over his arm. At the counter, where Steve assumes he should place his order, is a giant chalkboard sign with a truly tremendous number of options. He orders the first thing he recognizes, tomato and basil, and Sam gets a fancy chicken noodle. The cashier, a teenager with black elastics on her braces and white streaks in her hair, tells them to take a seat.

The restaurant is empty. Sam picks a seat by the window and Steve follows.

“Do you ever miss New York?” Steve asks, hooking his foot around Sam’s ankle. He’s been thinking about it a lot, lately. If maybe Sam misses New York, if maybe Sam could miss it enough to go home.

Sam nods, then shakes his head. “Yes and no. I don’t miss the noise and the crowds. I miss my mama and I miss my sister.” He pauses and Steve leans forward, propping his chin in his hand, listening. “Everything was different, when I got back,” he says, looking out the window. “This has been a good place to be… away. From all of that.”

Steve looked up ‘pararescuemen’ on Wikipedia after he heard Sam telling Bucky that he was one at the bar that night, in between songs. He ended up elbow deep in pararescue training videos on YouTube at four in the morning. He could imagine Sam, wonderful Sam with his kind eyes, saving lives. It was hard though, to imagine anyone undergoing that level of training.

In the past, Steve had tried to bring it up, his service history and why he’s living alone in a lighthouse so far from home, but every time Sam changes the subject. He does it so smoothly, subtly, that Steve usually isn’t aware that it’s happened until later, when he’s cuddled up behind a sleeping Sam with an arm slung across his middle.

“My, ah-” Sam clears his throat. He hasn’t stopped staring out the window. “My best friend died, over there.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, doesn’t react, doesn’t breathe, until Sam reaches a shaky hand from his lap out across the table. Steve rushes to latch on and holds it tightly. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Sam laughs, wet and a little harsh. He finally drags his eyes from outside to Steve’s face. He’s not crying, but Steve can see the strain in the skin around his eyes. Sam laughs again. “Can we talk about anything else?”

“Sure,” Steve assures him. He says, “I had scarlet fever once.”

“No, you didn’t!” Sam exclaims. He looks horrified.

“I did! It’s part of why my hands are so arthritic already.” Steve grips Sam’s hand for emphasis and smiles. They talk about Steve’s various childhood illnesses over their soup and after, they walk back to campus for Steve’s late afternoon class together in a companionable silence.

*

Not that night, but another night, Sam lays with his back to Steve and tells him about Riley, about his best friend, who he watched fall from the sky. Steve holds him while he cries.

 

 

Eight.

March comes in like a lion, roaring snow storms and bitter winds. Steve wears two sweaters over his thin frame, but still can’t seem to get warm. The piles of old snow become so high on the sidewalks that they tower over him. He feels like he’s in some weird alternate universe or, as Bucky suggests in their texts, an alien planet. He wants to paint it, but ends up with canvases filled with blue-tinted white paint for his troubles.

This morning, the sky is overcast and the wind howls around him as he shuffles his way to work, clomping through slush and dirty ice. His jacket does little to protect him from the violent gusts that threaten to knock him over. He buries his nose in his scarf, one of Sam’s that he’s borrowed for the day.

From his pocket, his phone trills. He waits until he’s inside the art building, pulling off his outer layers and coughing from the cold, to dig it out of his jeans. There’s a video from Sam. It’s just him dramatically frowning at the empty space in his bed, holding the cartoon Steve had left him that morning of the two of them kissing like Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Steve laughs, and exits out of his video app. He pulls up Snapchat, and is in the process of sending Sam a selfie of his miserable chapped face, when he literally bumps into the head of the art department.

“Oh, Steve!” she exclaims before he can apologize. “I was looking for you! I don’t have time to talk about it now, but I would like to set up a meeting with you to talk about the possibility of you staying on here, permanently.”

“Ororo-” Steve starts, but nothing comes out. He blinks and she’s still standing in front of him.

“Peggy was only supposed to be here for a year, until we found someone more long-term. You’ve been such a great addition to the staff that we would hate to lose you.” She hooks her finger around the sleeve of her shirt to look at her watch and grimaces. “Please set something up with my secretary,” she says, already walking away.

At a loss, Steve walks to his classroom. He teaches his students mostly on autopilot and is glad when the day is done. It isn’t until later, when he’s back in his subletted apartment alone and thinking too hard, that he realizes his fingers had slipped on his phone when he bumped into his boss. He accidently posted a blurry half selfie with a haphazard flower crown to his Story. It feels somehow apt.

 

 

Nine.

Natasha visits after the last of the snow has cleared away. She flies herself and rents her own car at the airport. She doesn’t tell Steve that she’s coming, just shows up at the end of his work day like she’s been here all along and tucks her arm through his. They walk together through the muddy streets until Natasha and her caffeine dependency take them to the Dunkin Donuts on Main Street.

It’s mid-April and there are flyers up all over town for a May Day festival. There’s one in the window of the coffee shop. Natasha points to it on their way in with one immaculate red nail and asks him if he plans on going to that.

They order their drinks and while they wait Steve shrugs. “Probably,” he says. Sam wants to go because they’re going to have flower crowns, and he loves any excuse to wear one. Steve loves that about him. That he’s the kind of man who has seen things no one should have to and came out the other side of it the kind of person who wears flowers and sometimes sings to birds.

“So, this town-” Natasha says on their way out, holding the door open for Steve. They both take sips of their coffee. “It’s pretty much Star’s Hollow.” Her tone is flat, inquisitive, but not judgmental.

“Sort of,” Steve concedes. “But it’s nice.”

Natasha is quiet, drinks her coffee, and lets Steve walk her down to the waterfront where the docks are still sitting in the same place they had been last fall, waiting to be returned to the water.

Steve watches her look out over the harbor. It’s sunny, but not so bright that it’s blinding. It’s soft, somehow, like the light’s been filtered out, cut in half, reduced. Natasha breathes in the chilly salted air, wind whipping at her loosely curled hair. She casts one last look at the tide coming in, foamy white spray on dark waters and seagulls flying overhead, before turning back to him. She touches the top of his floppy blond head and says, “I get it.”

He’s glad he doesn’t have to explain himself. Glad for Natasha who is, in many ways, the person who understands him, his motivations, best of all. He rests his head on her shoulder, and she touches the top of his head again. They stand like that for a few minutes, just staring out at the ocean together, fingers warmed by cups of rapidly cooling coffee.

“Take me to meet your guy,” Natasha says.

*

Steve invites Sam over for dinner. He lets him know ahead of time that Natasha is going to be there. Sam isn’t a fan of surprises. They have breakfast for dinner, Natasha’s favorite, and craft beers from a brewery about an hour inland. Sam brought had them the last time he was over, and offers up them to go with their pancakes and sausages.

Natasha and Sam get on like a house on fire, better than he had with Bucky, that’s for sure. Steve likes hearing the soft timber of Sam’s voice and the answer of Natasha’s clipped accent. They talk into the night, lingering on embarrassing stories from Steve’s youth. He spends most of the night with his cheeks flushed red and his throat raw from laughter.

“Remember,” Natasha reminds them before settling into the bed she’s made for herself on Steve’s fold-out couch. “You said you would show me the lighthouse tomorrow.”

Sam pats her elbow on his way through the living room. “Of course,” he says.

“I’m holding you to it,” she mumbles, already half asleep. Sam laughs and crowds Steve into his bedroom and shuts the door quietly behind them.

Sam sits on the edge of Steve’s bed, where he’s sat hundreds of times on nights like this one where they’re a little tipsy and everything feels right. He’s unlacing his shoes when Steve sits down beside him and runs his hand up Sam’s back.

He hasn’t told him yet, that he’s staying on at the college. He’s opened his mouth to do it a thousand times, but he can’t get the words out. Sam signed on when there was an expiration date; what if he isn’t interested when there isn’t one anymore?

Steve rubs Sam’s back and rests his forehead against Sam’s shoulder. He thinks, now is a good time. Now is the best time, when he’s a little drunk on overpriced beer. He parts his lips, scraping his skin on the fabric of Sam’s shirt, and he says, “I love you.”

It isn’t what he meant to say, but it’s what he needed to say, what he wanted to say, because they’re tantamount to the same thing. He is staying. He loves Sam. He loves Sam and he is staying.

“Steve,” Sam sighs, pushing Steve off his shoulder. He can see Sam batting down the hatches, closing himself off, physically, before his eyes. He tries to grab Sam’s hand and is shot down. “Steve, you’re leaving in like, three weeks.”

“I’m-” Steve sucks in a huge breath and wills away the tight feeling in his chest. “They offered me a job. Here."

Sam sputters. Steve’s never seen him do that before. “For real?” he asks, hand over his mouth. Steve nods and Sam covers his whole face with his hands, not just his mouth. He’s laughing. “Baby, baby, baby,” he chants, falling into Steve. He feels joyous.

“Yeah, there are some conditions, things I have to take care of before they can officially credit me as a full-time professor, but I can do all of it from here. It won’t take that long,” Steve babbles while Sam laughs in his lap.

“Steve,” Sam says, suddenly sober and sitting bolt upright, his hands on Steve’s shoulders. “I love you, too.”

They look at each other, silent and enraptured, before Steve plows into Sam, pushing him onto his back on the bed. He kisses his mouth, his cheeks, his nose. Sam’s laughing again and so is Steve. They’re caught up in the feeling that there’s no space between them. It’s velvety and sweet and it only gets better when he actually, properly, kisses Sam.

When they fall asleep, they’re spooned so tightly together Steve feels like he’s being imbedded in Sam’s back. It’s almost uncomfortable, but it's also the best night’s sleep he’s had in weeks.

*

“Get in close together!” Natasha orders, waving her hand from side-to-side. The sun is shining hard today, hot and overbearing. She squints at them, her cellphone poised and ready.

They’re at the lighthouse, Sam’s lighthouse, which is still technically closed for the season. He hasn’t given Natasha a tour yet because she decided, as soon as she got there, that she wanted a picture of the two of them in front of it.

“Closer!” she barks, making the hand gesture again. Steve pulls at Sam’s arm until it’s wrapped around his shoulders. Sam seems to feel this isn’t close enough, and slides his arm down across Steve’s chest. He brings the other one up and folds it over Steve’s middle. He presses a kiss to Steve’s temple that makes him smile like a dope and lean into Sam’s embrace.

Natasha’s phone makes the shutter sound a couple of times. She flicks through the ones she took and nods. She turns off her display and walks towards them, away from the water’s edge. “I sent you the good one,” she tells Steve.

“Thanks,” he says, untangling himself from Sam’s arms. He keeps ahold of his hand though, and doesn't let go until Sam starts his tour.

*

Natasha doesn’t tell him when she’s going to leave. She’s just gone the next day, her rented car missing from his driveway and her carefully packed bag gone from its place on the floor next to the couch. She even cleaned her hair out of his shower drain for him.

She sends him a text a couple of days later, telling him that she and Bucky will be back for his birthday. He sends her back a picture of him and Sam in bed, Steve’s hair sleep rumpled and Sam’s face still creased form the sheets. They’re giving her a thumbs up.

 

 

Ten.

The summer has come in full, humid force. It’s sticky and hot and Sam and Steve’s apartment above the museum doesn’t have an air conditioner any more than it had a working heating system in the winter. Steve feels like he’s swimming in the air.

Sam comes in from working on the exterior of the lighthouse, covered in dust and dirt. He stops in the bedroom/living room to kiss the top of Steve’s sweaty head. Steve reaches up to pat Sam’s shoulder, but doesn’t really have the energy to do more. He slides to the floor and feels like molasses, like honey dripping out of a bear shaped bottle. Steve lays between the couch and the coffee table and groans dramatically. Sam laughs at him.

Steve hears the kitchen sink turn on, then he hears it turn off. Sam walks back into the bedroom/living room and Steve can feel when Sam finally sees it.

“What is this?” Sam asks, stepping over Steve on the floor to get closer to the previously empty wall behind the tv. Steve cracks open one of his eyes and grins. Up on the wall are framed pictures Steve took of Sam on what Steve considers to be their first date, here, in the museum, and the one Natasha took on her first visit. There are a couple of Snapchat’s of Sam’s Steve had saved, ones of the two of them, and ones of them with people they know. Pictures of their families.

“Do you like it?” Steve asks when Sam hasn’t said anything in awhile. He’s propped up on his elbows now, watching the back of Sam’s neck like a hawk.

“It looks good,” Sam says, forcing nonchalance, but Steve can see his smile.

Steve settles back down to wallow on the floor some more, closing his eyes and flinging his arm across his forehead. “Good,” he says. “I’m glad you like it.”

Steve hears Sam go into the kitchen again, hears his open the fridge. A minute later a bag of ice wrapped in a wet towel falls on his chest. “Here,” Sam says, flopping onto the couch Steve just vacated. “Stop dying. The historical society will have my ass if you die in here.”

“Oh, no. Wouldn’t want that,” Steve laughs. He applies the bag of ice to the top of his head. He read on Buzzfeed that that would cool him down faster. With his free hand, he reaches up and gropes for Sam.

Sam takes Steve’s hand and they sit in a comfortable silence. Outside, when Steve looks up through the windows, the sky is a startling blue. He blinks and it lingers under his eyelids.

**

[ ](http://imgur.com/ylS3G2f)

**Author's Note:**

> bvckyboy.tumblr.com drop by maybe


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